Author: Karen

I am an RN, Author, Coach, and Speaker. I write novels about relationships to help people find insight into their own. I guide people to create comfort, clarity, and connection in their lives. By combining metaphysical tools with over twenty-five years of nursing experience, I infuse the 'art of nursing' into my practice by providing partnership and resources help people compassionately honor their health.

Conscious eating (WF&G week 2)

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, education, family, health

There I was,  in week 2. Here is what I’ve learned:  conscious eating is hard. Applying those 7 principles is hard.

 Regarding principle #3:  It is very hard to not do another blessed thing when you are eating, ever. Plus, I totally miss reading while I’m eating if I am eating alone. Regarding principle #2:  It also is hard for me to always sit down while eating. I sit down for 10 hours (plus commuting time) every day that I go to work, so I always stand while I am eating on my lunch breaks.  Regarding principle #4: It’s not always possible to tell if it’s my body or my mind that wants the tiramisu.

I know now why author Geneen Roth gives workshops about how to eat consciously: I’m guessing that few, if any, people would stick with it if they didn’t have the structure imposed upon them by another (structure that they had to pay for; money motivates).

I briefly entertained the idea of applying the “80/20” rule to conscious eating, but decided that it sort of demeaned it. I mean, I could have lived with it if I eliminated numbers 2, 3 and 4….

So, bottom line is this: week 2 was a bust.

Blackberries!

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, tweens

After an exhaustive search of my own backyard for blackberries, my take consisted of a small handful of berries from 

Blackberries picked at Susan's "farm"

 

some low-growing vines that I discovered had wended their way among the blueberry bushes. These I ate before I even made it into the house. 

My friend took pity on me. She invited me over to her house to pick some blackberries, so on Sunday, my daughter and I headed over. Well, I found out pretty quick why I only had a handful at my house…it’s because Susan has them all at her house! It seemed like millions of them. My hour and half (give or take) of picking did not even make a dent in the bounty of the blackberries. 

Now. What the heck does one do with a gallon of blackberries? 

Here’s a dozen ideas, ranging from easier to harder: 

  1. Eat them as is. No washing them off first; that’s for wimps.
  2. Stir them into your yogurt.
  3. Freeze them for use later on. You may have read advice about how you should place them on a cookie sheet in the freezer until they are frozen, the place them in a bag to prevent clumping, etc. I never do that; my freezer will not accommodate that on a good day (like, on the day before the food shopping). I just dump ’em all into a ziploc-type freezer bag and hope for the best. (It’s not ever a problem).
  4. Throw a handful into your (garden) salad. Really.
  5. Add some to pancake batter.
  6. Add some to a smoothie.
  7. Got a favorite blueberry muffin recipe? Try adding blackberries to the batter instead.
  8. Make a cobbler. Cobblers are pretty novice-baker-friendly. The Pioneer Woman Cooks has 2 versions of blackberry cobbler on her website.
  9. Make blackberry sauce for your pancakes, waffles, or other food of choice. This recipe has only 2 ingredients (one of which is the blackberries!).
  10. Blackberry pie would be great. If you use prepackaged pie crust, it’s even easier. Here’s a blackberry pie recipe from Mario Batali.
  11. Make a blackberry quick bread.
  12. Make blackberry ice cream. Okay, this is the most labor intensive, and you need (pricey) special equipment. Feel free to just look at the pictures of this one. 🙂

That’s it. That’s my top 12 list. I have done #1-4 so far (so many blackberries; so little time)…and I still have plenty left for other things on the list. And if I run out? Well, I know where to get more…heh heh heh…

The Man with the Ginormous Head

by Karen, posted in family, local fun, Someone's gotta say it, tweens

I was very excited to go see my daughter in a show at the Ogunquit Playhouse. I bought a ticket for 2 of the 3 shows in advance;  I had not been planning to attend the first show on Saturday. When I saw my daughter’s face as I told her this (“You mean you’re not going??”) , I had a change of heart and bought a ticket for that one as well.

Needless to say, I did not get a front row seat for my last-minute efforts. Now, there really aren’t many bad seats at the Playhouse, so I wasn’t too worried…I got there early. I found my seat. I waited with anticipation for the show to start. All was well, until…enter, the Man with the Ginormous Head.  Oh no! How could this happen?

If you ever find yourself in this position, what would you do? Here are some coping tips from my recent experience:

  1. Reposition yourself frequently. Otherwise, you will have a very large crick in your neck after an hour of tipping your head to the left without a break.
  2. Try not to think too much about how annoying you might be to the people sitting behind you (what with the frequent repositioning and all).
  3. Resist the urge to bludgeon big fat head with the $3 bottle of water you purchased at the concession stand when you arrived.
  4. Entertain the thought of pitching “height requirement for ticket sales” idea to the Playhouse management…under my plan, people 5’2″ (example: me) and under get would get preferential (read: up close) seating.
  5. Decide to be grateful that I am seeing the show two more times, one of which will be from the front row. When all is said and done, I will miss nothing.
  6. Wonder how, when 90% of the audience is under 3 feet tall (read: children), was I so fortunate as to wind up sitting behind the Man with the Ginormous Head.
  7. Pause briefly to further wonder why 4’8″ daughter is positioned behind the 5’8″ cast member wearing the 6″ tall headpiece on the stage…(but I digress).

Above all, remain calm, I reminded myself. Panicking helps no one. Breathe. He keeps moving around; there is no safe place! Now he is gesticulating with his hands (which are also ginormous!) effectively obliterating my tiny window of visibility to the stage!

And just when I think it can’t get any worse…well, it doesn’t. It gets better. The person who was sitting next to me doesn’t return after the intermission. The person sitting in front of her was a very small child who had migrated to his mother’s lap. The view is now completely unobstructed.  Life is good; the show goes on, and…I remember the most important thing:

I am so proud of my daughter. 🙂

Wells Harborfest: Straight Lace

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, local fun, tweens
Rotary Chicken Barbecue

This past Saturday was the annual Wells Harborfest at (you guessed it!) the Wells Harbor. There was a chicken barbeque by the Wells Rotary. This year it was extremely well attended. More than once during the time that my daughter and I were in line they thought they were sold out. We were lucky enough to get there in time. The dinner was $10 and consisted of a half chicken, scoop of cole slaw, soft white biscuit with butter, a bag of chips (which my daughter immediately appropriated, along with the roll), and a drink. The sodas were all gone, so we split a bottled water.

For dessert, Sundaes at the Beach was ready with a cooler and 2 scoopers of 4 flavors of their delicious ice cream: the holy trinity: vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, but with a nice bonus flavor: kahlua chip, which is one of our favorites. One scoop was only a buck.

We finished just in time to grab a seat on a bench for the Straight Lace concert at the Hope Hobbs Gazebo. This has become an annual event for us also. Last year, Helen (one of the singers) even invited some of the younger fans (my daughter included) up on stage to sing with the band, and gave them a percussion instrument to play! This year that didn’t happen, but it was still fun to watch everyone dancing.

Have you been down to the harbor for any of the free concerts? They are every Saturday night at 6:30pm this summer. Pick a band and go! It’s free fun for the fam. 🙂

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Sad day for tomatoes

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, education, family, gardening, raising chickens
rescued tomatoes

Well, I have some distressing news today: they have come. The dreaded tomato horned worm has invaded my tomato garden. In all of the years that I’ve been growing tomatoes, this is a (terrible) first. I guess it’s true: if you plant it, they will come. 

It’s especially depressing because (for once!) this has such a promising year for tomatoes so far! They are plentiful, robust plants this year, which almost never happens. 

So, the time has come for me to admit the truth: I am a wimpy gardener. I hate picking the pests off of the plants leaves and fruits; it makes my skin crawl. Of course, that is the first line of defense against so many pests: remove and squish them. 

But I can’t really complain. I am fortunate. I am married to man who loves me more than he hates tomato pests. He is the one who hand-picked all of those repulsive, large, green wormy caterpillary horned creatures from my tomato plants and then fed them to the chickens (circle of life, baby; circle of life). 

Why not just turn the chickens loose on the tomato beds? Because chickens love eating tomatoes as much as the tomato hornworms love eating tomatoes, so there is a basic conflict of interest there. 

If you want to see what these disgusting creatures look like, click here, then scroll down for the pictures on the left side of the text. 

Of course, there are various and sundry poisons to use for most pests, but doesn’t it give you pause when you think about eating the food that has potentially internalized the poison that you are hoping kills some living thing? 

So, what do you do? Pick, squish, then hope for the best? or do you follow that with a good dousing with the poison of your choice?

Children’s theater

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, restaurants, tweens

Consider taking a break from the movies this weekend. There are shows this summer at the Ogunquit Playhouse for kids of all ages. If you have some free time this weekend, head over to the Playhouse to see this week’s show: Jack and the Beanstalk. The show times are Saturday August 7th at 10AM and another show at 12:00 noon. On Sunday, August 8th there is one show at 10:00AM. The price is reasonable, and almost any seat will give you a good view of the stage.

You can order your tickets online at the Ogunquit Playhouse website (full disclosure: my daughter is in this play!).

Have plans already this weekend? There is one more event for children’s theater this season: My Son Pinocchio. There are 3 shows; the dates are August 28th and 29th (also a weekend).

After the theater, cruise (or crawl…it is a summer weekend in Maine, after all; traffic will most likely be heavy) on down route 1 toward Wells for lunch or a snack. There are so many great restaurants and ice cream shops that your only problem will be deciding which one to pick. 🙂

WF&G 7 guidelines: Week One

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, family, health, italian

Okay, so what I’m learning with applying the WF&G (Women Food and God by Geneen Roth) 7 guidelines is that I’m in trouble right away (for example, I am trying to figure out ways to sync the guidelines with the Weight Watchers Points system…and somehow, I think that is not the author’s intent…). It is also actually harder to follow all of the guidelines on workdays.

  1. Eating when I was hungry seemed like a “no-brainer’, but if it is true that what I’m hungry for (often) isn’t food, then I really had to stop to consider if I was hungry. This is diametrically opposed to: it’s 12:30; time for lunch! I decided to try to use a scale of 0-10, with “0” being not hungry and “10” being stomach growling non-stop. I would try to eat at the 4-5-6 range.
  2. Not eating in the car? OMG! Does this include Altoids? Tictacs? Gum? Does downing a McD’s caramel frappe comprise an act of eating?
  3. Eat without distractions….this is the hardest one for me. It was a total wake up call too; I had no idea how often I was doing other things while I eat, for one thing. The worst thing though, is that I love to read while I eat, something I’ve been doing since childhood. (Sob!). Plus, on a workday, I often eat breakfast on the way to the gym. It was hard to wait till I arrived at work to eat. Will have to rethink that one.
  4. “Eat what your body wants” I also thought was going to be easy, but here’s the thing: I found out how often what my body is asking for is at odds with what my mind thinks is appropriate. (Example: my body wants a pizza, not a 3 point Weight Watchers meal).
  5. This one isn’t too hard at this point (eating till satisfied).
  6. Not eating anything that I wouldn’t eat “in full view of others” is also not hard for me.
  7. This one: “Eat with enjoyment, gusto, and pleasure”… No problemo! I am Italian, after all!

For now, I’ve decided that gum does not count as food/eating; Altoids and Tictacs might count, but for this week they don’t. Non-caloric beverages (water, black coffee or tea) will not count; caloried ones will (so long frappe). One week down, three to go. Is anyone else working with these guidelines? How’s it going?

Women Food and God

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, health

Women Food and God: an unexpected path to almost everything is written by Geneen Roth, who has written many books about compulsive eating and weight. She will be presenting a program at Kripalu in Lenox, MA this September. She has been on the Oprah show and some of her writings are on Oprah’s website as well.  Her recent article is entitled: The Cupcake Dialogues….hello? I mean, it doesn’t even matter what she has to say really: she had me at “cupcake”. 🙂

She also offers a self-guided online retreat.  This gave me an idea…why not try a self-guided- retreat, period? Seems like a (potentially) more cost-effective route (I say “potentially”, because if I really am eating everything I want, well, serving after serving of  tiramisu can really add up!).

So, for August, I’m going to try to live by Geneen’s 7 guidelines for just one month: August.  I wonder how it will turn out?

Kate Braestrup at Kennebooks

by Karen, posted in books
Kate Braestrup, signing her book "Here If You Need Me"

Kennebooks in Kennebunk hosted a book reading and signing Thursday evening with Kate Braestrup. She is a Chaplain for the Maine Warden Service by day…and author by night (well, this night, anyway).

The bookstore staffers let us know that Kate would be arriving late, but then they started bringing out the refreshments, so the crowd was appeased. First, pitchers of lemon water. Next, an urn of coffee. I got a styrofoam cup and filled it halfway; my expectations were very low, but I was yawning quite a bit (long day) and didn’t want Kate to think that it in any way reflected on her talk. Well, here’s a surprise: the coffee was great (since I’m a flavored coffee kind of gal, and this was straight up, that’s saying something). I quickly filled the cup up the rest of the way. Next came the treats: muffins and cookies. Someone said that this was the best offering of any book signing she’d ever attended. I second that.

Kate arrives and is fully present immediately. She first talks a little about who she is, and her job as a Chaplain. After that, she reads from her book “Marriage and other acts of Charity“. What is great about Kate is that she has excellent comic timing. If her day job (and/or her night job) doesn’t work out, she could always do stand up…she’s that funny.

Kate is also generous; she answers every question that  is asked of her with thought and feeling. Overall, Kate was warm, witty, and worth the wait. Her first book is “Here if You Need Me“. She has a third book coming out in the fall (probably November 2010) entitled “Beginner’s Grace“, and is at work on a fourth. I can’t wait.

Have any of you read Kate’s books?

(Okay, well, if you haven’t, you must).

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Reunions

by Karen, posted in education, family

My 30th high school reunion is coming up this November. I have been to only one thus far, the 10th, mostly because I never received any notice of any of the reunions (found out about the 10th from a friend I happened to run into one day while food shopping). Enter Facebook; suddenly I am findable..and was found.

Coincidently, I recently read the book The Last Time I Saw You by Elizabeth Berg, finishing it just prior to learning about the upcoming reunion, which I believe has put me in a receptive frame of mind for reunion-going.

If I remember correctly, we had in excess of 600 people in my graduating class. One inventive alumnus set up a reunion page on Facebook, and to date, there are about 178 of us accounted for. I say “about”, because the number is growing every day. I think it makes going to the reunion less threatening, more accessible, sort of, when you have the opportunity to “meet” up again with people prior to the actual event.

It’s amazing to chat online with people that you know but haven’t seen or talked to (for the most part) for thirty years. I am thinking it will be more fun if I get motivated to pull out my high school yearbook (hmmm, it’s around here somewhere…) and look back at us then, and next check out the pictures of us on Facebook now. Some of us have kids that now are about the same age that we were when we graduated.

I also learned from a quick google search that there is a website for my graduating class (full disclosure: the first one I found was not for my state. Duh. Note to self: always include the state when googling a city!). Good thing I checked the list of names (of which I recognized none! My first clue that I was in the wrong place!) before I bought the tickets through Paypal.

So, how do you all feel about high school reunions? To go, or not to go…that is the question.